People's Hero BN's nightmare...

yes, Raja Petra is again in trouble...for being honest in his opinions.

Just visited Malaysia Today and we are being updated on the high profile case:

8.40 am - No police, FRU personnel nor their trucks in and around the court's complex.
8.58 am - 1 x Balai Polis Bergerak and 2 x Police Patrol Cars entering the complex
9.08 am - RPK and wife arrived, accompanied by Ronnie Liu, Tony and lots of Bloggers. Many MSM reporters were also seen entering the Complex
9.59am - About 200 supporters are now gathering at the lobby. Nurul, DSAI's daughter, made an appearance and left for the Parliament. Lim Kit Siang and a huge number of MPs from the opposition are giving support to RPK, including lawyers. Reporters from International News are also ready to capture the events
10.04 am - Crowd has increased to about 400
10.33 am - Case transfered to Session Court PJ!! Everyone is now going over to PJ
11.10 am - The main group has just reached the PJ's court house. About 200 supporters; while the rest are bloggers, lawyers and MPs
11.19 am - RPK and the rest are now waiting outside the session court, waiting to be called in. 'Could be a long wait.'
11.50 am - RPK waiting for the 'charge' paper. Session to begin soon.
12.11 pm - Court still in session. Mr Govin Deo just walked into the court room. Mr Karpal Singh just arrived and being assisted to enter the court room.
12.20 pm - Session started for 10 minutes. They went through the article
Today, we shall not be talking about politics. We shall also not be talking about race or religion. Today, we shall talk about doing the human thing. Today, let's discuss ... , 'Let’s send the Altantuya murderers to hell', Let’s send the Altantuya murderers to hell before a break.
12.28 pm - setting date for trial on 6-10 October 2008
12.30 pm - Bail set at RM5,000.00
12.42 pm - RPK refused to pay bail!!!!!
12.57 pm - Govin Deo's press statement - While bail is being raised from the public, RPK is going to Sg Buloh for detention.
Datin Sri Azizah was also present

This morning I visited Lim Kit Siang's blog where he posted the following:

i have been informed that Raja Petra Kamaruddin has been ordered to surrender himself at the Jalan Duta magistrate’s court at 9.30 am tomorrow to be charged with sedition.
I have not been able to contact RPK to get confirmation.

Among those who commented, Jeffrey stands out as one with the correct perspective, presumably because of his legal background:

Jeffrey Says: Today at 01: 16.53 (6 hours ago)

Under the Sedition Act, the intention of the person charged – whether he intended or attempted to be seditious is irrelevant. The offence of sedition will be made out if act, speech, word, publication has, in language of section 3(1) of the Act, a “seditious tendency”. There is a seditious tendency if it excites disaffection amongst the people and brings into hatred or contempt both the government and the country’s administration of justice…..

The case against RPK for his article “Let’s Send The Altantuya Murderers To Hell” will most likely focus on that part of what he wrote, which is not part of public knowledge, still a rumour, unproven as to facts which (hint hint) begins with : “Rumour has it, and it remains just that, a rumour, is that all this ‘evidence’ has been given to….”

I don’t even dare to repeat it in fear of being also charged for sedition and I advise that you don’t too.

The only defence under the Act is if act, speech, word, publication is expressed to point out an error by the government or the system of administration of justice with a view to procure by lawful means the alteration, removal and rectification of that error….Phew this is not easy.

On conviction for first offence, the person will be liable to a fine not exceeding five thousand ringgit or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three years or to both, and, for a subsequent offence, to imprisonment for a term not exceedingfive years!

So how to save the hero RPK?

But what makes anyone thinks he needs saving???Why do you think Cruise ships here sail to international waters to allow for the gambling that goes on in their casinos????Gambling in public place by public is an offence under the Common Gaming Act. That’s domestic law. Is it applicable in international waters???

Somebody once advised the police this : (quote) “Malaysia Today’s domain name is registered in the UK….When you click on the domain name malaysia-today.net you are sent to the server of the registered IP address in that domain name. Our server is in Singapore. But what you see is only the front page. Then you choose which item on the front page you want to read and you are sent to the blog. The blog sits in the US. When you post a comment it goes straight to the blog. For all intents and purposes, Malaysia Today is a foreign website and not a Malaysian website. We therefore do not come under Malaysian laws. Let me put it another way. Sodomy is a crime in Malaysia and you can get sent to jail for nine years for the crime of sodomy even if you are a Deputy Prime Minister. In England, men can marry men and you will even receive a congratulatory message from the British Prime Minister. So, sodomy is not a crime in the UK and you do not go to jail. In short the Sedition Act is valid only in Malaysia and not outside Malaysia. So you cannot impose Malaysia’s Sedition Act on Malaysia Today which resides outside Malaysia” (unquote).

That somebody is none other than the webmaster of news portal Malaysia Today, who will be charged tomorrow for sedition at the Magistrates’ Court in in Jalan Duta.

What authorities don’t seem to grasp is that they are not dealing with a simple sedition case by ordinary print…..What RPK is alleged to have committed is a cyber offence of using cyber space and blogosphere to write allegedly seditious postings. This has implication because it attracts vexed legal complications involving international versus domestic laws……

The first question/challenge to the Prosecution will be : is it the intent of Sedition Act 1948 extraterritorial in its application? Is it intended to apply to people allegedly making seditious postings under our Sedition Act in America???

This cannot be - because in US (the domain of MalaysiaToday) our narrow terms of what is sedition don’t apply. Internationally other countries may subscribe to the UN’s Convention of Human Rights so by international law and convention (by which Malaysia is also governed), Malaysia cannot impose her domestic laws on the international scene (the same reason by cruse ships operate their casinos in international waters).

For if every national member of the international community were to do so, there would be international chaos and conflicts which international law seeks to prevent….

Even big bully USA [which sent the marines in 1989 to Panama to arrest and whisk away General Manuel Antonio Noreiga to South Miami-Dade prison] generally recognise that US domestic laws do not apply out of the US other than very exceptional cases where the particular US legislations evince an explicit and affirmative intent to apply extraterritorially…If there were no such explicit and affirmative intent expressed in the particular domestic law, then it must be presumed to the contrary that it did not intend to risk “international discord” to apply extraterritorially…..

The same may be said of our Sedition Act. If this is correct, then Undergrad2 is free to post seditious statements here with impunity, immune from the long arm of Malaysian laws with dire consequences to Uncle Kit who hosts this blog unless this blog one like MalaysiaToday has its domain name registered in (say) Iceland, server in Barzil with the blog sitting in the US!

RPK is in fact spoiling for a legal battle to test and set legal precedents for cyber and international law.

These are complicated questions. I am not sure our prosecutors/lawyers are experts in this new field.

To fight this case (along the lines suggested above) will take 5 years at least, having regard to the complexities of the issues by which time Pakatan Rakyat might have by then formed the government….

And in the meanwhile, the complexities of the issue, of which local lawyers and prosecutors have not much knowledge or experience in, will justify RPK’s appointment of the real QCs (Queen Counsels) specializing in Cyber laws to argue the case here, raising the international profile of the Altantuya Shaariibuu’s murder case and its proceedings so far (like the way Hindraf raised international profile of Tamil Indian plight here) – the last thing the Powers-That-be can afford.

They are ill advised to charge RPK : he is maneuvering them to an eventually unacceptable position, in my humble view.

Which is why, as I said before in my earlier posting, somebody is making a terribly big mistake, and I don’t think it is Raja Petra Kamaruddin, the webmaster of news portal Malaysia Today, who until now is still ahead in the game….

On ’saving’ RPK, I rest my case.

(6 out of 72 comments as at 8.18am)

From rocky’s bru:

Did you know?

... that the Sedition Act is 60 years old (two years older than Raja Petra Kamarudin), and that it was introduced by the British in 1948 with the intent of curbing opposition to colonial rule? And that Malaysiakini was shut down for a period in 2003 under the Act after it published a letter questioning Malay special rights and for equating a Malay party's youth wing to the KKK?Click h e r e to read more at Wiki.

Question for Election Commission Chairman...

From Tony Pua's blog:

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Jetsetting PM & DPM

Here's an interesting question posted by Abdul Hadi Awang (MARANG) last Wednesday, and the reply from the Prime Minister's office, in case you missed it in your local papers.

Berapakah jumlah perbelanjaan yang ditanggung oleh Kerajaan sepanjang tempoh kempen Pilihan Raya Umum ke 12 dari 24 Februari sehingga 7 Mac 2008 hasil dari penggunaan jet eksekutif Kerajaan bagi kegunaan YAB Perdana Menteri dan YAB Timbalan Perdana Menteri.

And the answer?

Bagi tempoh 24 Februari sehingga 7 Mac 2008, jumlah perbelanjaan untuk penggunaan jet eksekutif adalah sebanyak RM792,325.20.
Lulu blogged it here.

Quick factoid: Candidates for parliamentary seats are permitted to spend not more than RM200,000 under the Elections Act, or be subject to disqualification.

And check out my boss getting "caught" here (or here as reported in The Star) in contrast.

POSTED BY TONY P AT 12:39 AM

My comments:

Caretaker PM and DPM should check out India's example when campaigning.

One leader is against minimum wage and the other suggested that we change our life styles because of rising oil prices!

I did when I shelved my 1983 BMW 728i saving Rm1,600 in road tax a year, car pool with my breakfast kakis, and use my son's manual Hyundai Accent which saves much on petrol. But then we are we, they are they - that's the difference!

Know contentment to feel happier

A few weeks back, I bought a decorative piece of bamboo, carved with two Chinese characters: ‘chee chook’. This is similar to those, which are made of green-coloured stones passing off as jade, usually with a big character ‘fook’ for good luck.

I was instantly taken in by ‘chee chook’, which according to my poor knowledge of Chinese, means to know Contentment. Unlike the usual ones for prosperity, which are in red embroidery and jade, this one is in dark brown with the two characters in natural bamboo colour which seems more meaningful for what it is.

Soon after, a friend emailed to me the following story, which is most apt for people like us to know how lucky we are, and not to feel discontented and always compare with those with material wealth:

Have you ever, at any one time, had the feeling that life is bad, real bad, and you wish you were in another situation?

You find life make things difficult for you, work sucks, life sucks, everything seems to go wrong...

Read the following story... it may change your views about life:

After a conversation with one of my friends, he told me despite taking 2 jobs, he brings back barely above 1K per month, he is happy as he is.

I wonder how he can be as happy as he is, considering he has to skimp his life with the low pay to support a pair of old parents, in-laws, a wife, 2 daughters and the many bills of a household.

He explained that it was through one incident that he saw in India that happened a few years ago when he was really feeling low and touring India after a major setback.

He said that right in front of his very eyes he saw an Indian mother chop off her child's right hand with a chopper. The helplessness in the mother's eyes, the scream of pain from the innocent 4-year-old child haunted him until today.

You may ask why did the mother do so; had the child been naughty, had the child's hand been infected?? No, it was done for two simple words-- -TO BEG!

The desperate mother deliberately caused the child to be handicapped so that the child could go out to the streets to beg.

Taken aback by the scene, he dropped a piece of bread he was eating half-way. And almost instantly, a flock 5 or 6 children swamped towards this small piece of bread which was covered with sand, robbing bits from one another. The natural reaction of hunger.

Stricken by the happenings, he instructed his guide to drive him to the nearest bakery. He arrived at two bakeries and bought every single loaf of bread he found in the bakeries. The owner was dumbfounded but willingly sold everything. He spent less than $100 to obtain about 400 loaves of bread (this is less than $0..25 per loaf) and spent another $100 to get daily necessities.

Off he went in the truck full of bread into the streets. As he distributed the bread and necessities to the children (mostly handicapped) and a few adults, he received cheers and bows from these unfortunate. For the first time in his life he wondered how people can give up their dignity for a loaf of bread which cost less than $0.25.

He began to tell himself how fortunate he is. How fortunate he is to be able to have a complete body, have a job! , have a family, have the chance to complain what food is nice and what isn't nice, have the chance to be clothed, have the many things that these people in front of him are deprived of...

Now I begin to think and feel it, too! Was my life really that bad? Perhaps... no, I should not feel bad at all... What about you? Maybe the next time you think you are, think about the child who lost one hand to beg on the streets.

"Contentment is not the fulfilment of what you want, it is the realization of how much you already have."

When the door of happiness closes, another opens, but often times we look so long at the closed door that we don't see the one which has been opened for us.

It's true that we don't know what we've got until we lose it, but it's also true that! we don't know what we've been missing until it arrives.

The happiest of people don't necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the most of everything that comes along their way.

The brightest future will always be based on a forgotten past, you can't go on well in life until you let go of your past failures and heartaches.

With this story in mind, I am terribly disappointed with our PM when I read this headline in Malaysiakini:

“The premier says unions can hold even “100 demonstrations” but nothing can change the fact that the government cannot implement a minimum wage policy”

Well, I do not have the figures of the number of workers who are below the minimum wage asked for, but at a guess, for a few million workers to be able to have a decent standard of living might cost at least a few billions a year. Surely, there are many instances of wastage of public funds which if properly controlled, our government would be able to afford.

Just because the opposition goes for so-called populist policies does not mean BN cannot compete for the benefit of more people.

Security problems

There’s a joke for those who are worried over security, “poon hei mataliu chi” in Cantonese, which translates into “move into a police station to stay”!

Well, the one and only goldsmith shop in Pusing is directly opposite the police station. A man with a parang was foolish enough to try and rob the old boss. When his wife screamed, he left empty-handed into a waiting car driven by an accomplice. The poor man had head injuries.

It was a good thing that nothing was taken, otherwise the police will be getting another round of bad publicity. Being in charge of security is a thankless task – nobody will show appreciation when nothing happens and you will get the blame if something happens!

Anyway, this reminds me of when we lost the car, which was parked in the compound of the former Perak Chinese Maternity Hospital. After Cheng’s medical examination by her aunt, she had to go for an X-ray done. Dr. Lee suggested that we go to PCMH because of the ample parking space. I was feeling sleepy and thought about waiting in the car but decided to wait with SP in the waiting area. We were there for only half an hour and when we came out, we couldn’t find the car! The thought that went through my mind was “unbelievable that we could lose a car which was actually within our sight if only we were mindful”! Anyway, when we got to the guardhouse at the entrance, we found the guard and a friend, having a nap, with the louvered windows half closed!

That was 5 years ago and I had written a letter to M’kini signing off as ‘Carlost Santana’! How time flies!

Just got back from the estates in Selama, Kedah. Yesterday evening, the contractor already informed us that several rows of oil palms were harvested by thieves on May 1, when workers were supposed to be off on Labour Day.

This was despite harvesting interval changed from 20-day to 12-day! For those uninitiated, palm oil fruits must be ripe to be accepted by oil mills. Part of the blame should go to the collection centres for accepting fruits from those who came in motorbikes and private vehicles who were willing to accept low prices.

Today, when we arrived, there were two guys supposedly fishing from a small stream within the estate. Later, there was a car with a few guys who sat down to play cards. We know who were the likely culprits but it is a ‘cat and mouse’ game, which being from out of town, we are natural losers. Access through the estate was granted out of goodwill and to block it off will backfire. Even to be able to catch them red-handed had been known to be fatal, like what happened to an estate owner in Perak.

It was only recently that my wife welcomed my assistance – as driver, for company and to show the would-be thieves that she is not alone, not that I can do much when confronting them. Occupational risk increases with rising palm oil prices.

Cheng took part in a little known race called batavierenrace

I was in Poland the weekend before while last weekend, I was in the largest student relay race in the Netherlands http://www.batavierenrace.nl/foto/browse/2008/foto/2eadf80f428ab571725b3c475e2436cf/186
the "186" runner is Anke from our Governance team). It was a lot of fun - 185km, 25 runners, 16 hours of relay running, that ended with a big party at the University of Twente campus. Personally, it meant a lot more because I practised running almost every week (had to stop for two weeks when I sprained my ankle) with a few others two months before the race. I also managed a longer route (6.1km instead of 3.5km) because one girl hurt her calf in a hockey match.

Last Friday was a long day in the "east", i.e. The Hague and Amsterdam. I managed to make the most out of my visit by arranging three meetings with: a housing market researcher at the Dutch Central Planning Bureau, a labour economist and potential supervisor at UvA (University of Amsterdam), and an Italian PhD student at UvA who is working on neighbourhood effects on school outcomes (I got to know her through one of our Italian lecturers). They were helpful in some ways or the other but in the end, I couldn't help but feel that I've obtained more new questions than answers to my original questions. Nevertheless, the trip has already paid off - the labour economist wrote to me this morning agreeing to be my supervisor. It is still a long way to go in a PhD career, but at least I have passed the "supervisor" hurdle, which indirectly vouches for the viability of my proposed research. This will definitely bolster my proposal defence on May 13th (I hope that I don't share the luck with our nation with "May 13"s). *fingers-crossed*

Anyway, I will call by the end of the week when all the commotion is over. I am currently rushing to finalise my proposal for submission this week.

Some random pictures from the website as I was unable to open those sent by Cheng: